Media Pushes Idea That We've Yet To See Full Force Of GOP Attacks
One of the things that never ceases to amaze Election Central about the media's coverage of the midterms is the extent to which reporters and commentators are willing to repeat the claim that the GOP is on the verge of launching "new" diabolically potent political attacks or of "escalating" its political assaults on Dems. The implication is always that we haven't yet seen what the GOP's really got up its sleeve, so Dems should be very, very afraid. Case in point: today's Washington Post. More after the jump.
Today's WaPo reports:
Rove Road-Tests Tougher Attack on DemocratsRepublicans have been promising they would ratchet up the rhetoric against Democrats in the final two weeks of the fall campaign, and the man President Bush called "The Architect" of his political campaigns offered a preview of what they have in mind on Friday night....
"You can't say I want to win the war but not be willing to fight the war," said Rove, Bush's top political adviser. "And if leading Democrats have their way, our nation will be weaker and the enemies of our nation will be stronger. And that's a stark fact, and it's the reason that this fall election will turn very heavily on national security."...
Rove stepped in at dinner and used his speech to road-test new lines of attack on the Democrats.
Except, of course, that Rove didn't do that at all. What Rove said the other night is virtually identical to what he's been saying for literally years now. There's nothing at all new about the "new" lines of attack Rove allegedly "road tested."
On Friday, the Post similarly reported in an otherwise skeptical article that the GOP was going to "escalate" its attacks on Dems between now and election day. This assertion is similarly bogus. For several weeks during the summer, the Republican Party and its surrogates in the media blared its chief attacks on Dems -- that they'll hike taxes and are weak on security -- at the American electorate in every conceivable forumn across the country. The GOP's national security road show included repeated speeches by President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, and the roar of propaganda reached full pitch with a series of events carefully choreographed to exploit the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks for maximum partisan gain.
The GOP is obviously going to try to do something like this again in the remaining two-and-a-half weeks, but there's no reason whatsoever to believe that it will represent an "escalation" in any meaningful way.
What's more, as Election Central reported the other day, the NRCC has already spent an astounding $40 million in the past seven weeks on efforts to prevent the House from slipping away. Given that the NRCC has $39.2 million on hand, it's hard to see how it'll turn up the ad-campaign volume significantly louder than it has been already.
These Post examples, which are admittedly small, nonetheless represent something we've seen consistently throughout this campaign: The extent to which pundits and commentators always seem convinced that Rove and the GOP have everything all figured out and that they know something the rest of us don't -- in other words, that they're omnipotent and all-seeing. You hear this suggested again and again.
But right now, everything that's happened in this campaign suggests the opposite. We've seen what the GOP has in its arsenal of attacks, and we've seen the party amplify its chosen attack lines to full roar with both the White House pulpit and the enormous sums of money the party has at its disposal. Nonetheless, the polls show that the GOP majority, particularly in the House, is daily sliding ever closer to electoral annihilation.
Will the GOP pull this out with some brilliant last minute political push that none of us anticipated? Anything's possible, and of course Dems would be remiss if they weren't preparing themselves for anything and everything that might be thrown at them. But right now, all evidence suggests that the complete opposite scenario will play out. The far more likely reality is that all the GOP has left is more of the same failing tactics. So for the time being, at least -- that is, until we see some evidence suggesting otherwise -- it would be nice if pundits and reporters stopped simply taking it for granted that we haven't seen what the GOP really has in store for us.
Update: A couple of commenters have written in to question the suggestion that the GOP is sliding towards electoral "annihilation." Agreed -- let me clarify: I meant to write (and have corrected the above text to read) that the GOP majority, particularly in the House, looks to be sliding towards electoral annihilation. To clarify another point here, I don't mean to be arguing that this isn't a close election or that Democrats should take victory for granted. Rather, my point was simply that it would be nice if commentators stopped taking it for granted that Rove et. al. are always on the verge of uveiling some ultra-potent new tactic that will prove the GOP's omnipotence and omniscence yet again.
~
The main problem with this meme is that it is part of the logical predicate to a Republican "victory" by theft or malfeasance.
Whether they mean to or not, The Washington Post and the MSM in general help make excuses in advance for the official vote counts not coming out quite as predicted by the polls. They spread this notion that things are not as they seem, that there is some kind of mysterious (but legitimate) extra advantage that the Republicans are holding in reserve -- I guess it's some "secret plan" to win the election.
By feeding this beast, it makes it easier for them to explain away any surprizing results. It seems clear that the MSM haven't the stomach to even consider whether the elections are actually fair. (Plenty of evidence is out there -- the MSM have had to go out of their way to avoid reporting on it.)
Why do they do this? I really don't know. I have trouble believing that the MSM is really part of a vast conspiracy. Maybe Rove is just really good at manipulating (or intimidating) the media (not to mention the Democrats). Mainly, I think it's just easier to report on the election as a horse race, rather than to dig into tactics and break down the numbers to see whether they make any sense. The MSM are now in the infotainment business, after all.
But I know that the overall effect is this: the seed is planted in the heads of reasonably well informed citizens (the minority who actually read the paper) that they shouldn't be too surprized if the Republicans win, despite all the obvious reasons that they're likely to lose.
And thus, a stolen election won't be as hard to explain.
-- ARG
October 22, 2006 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nonetheless, the polls show the GOP daily sliding ever closer to electoral annihilation.
The polls show them headed toward defeat, but annihilation probably is a strong word. We cannot lose sight of the fact that this is still a very close election, and that even if we win as expected, the state of play for the future is still very close. Even with all of the GOP's problems and the very good political environment for us, we're probably going to only win something like 25-30 seats in the House at best (likely around 20). If we take the Senate, it will be by only one seat. In other words, we can hardly ask for a better environment to run in, and the best we can do is barely gain a majority? And to do it, we have to win with Dems who talk like Republicans (a la Ford, Webb, etc).
That shows how much work has to be done in the battle between the two parties, even if we pull this off in November. The GOP won't be annihilated. A loss will hurt them in some ways and help them in others. They'll still be a formidable--perhaps even more formidable--opponent than they are now after this election, even if they lose. They're lined up for an electoral defeat in this round, but we have much more work to do to win this match altogether.
October 22, 2006 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
What do Rove et al have in store for us? Rove's MO has always been to turn a strategical weakness into a strength. A primary weakness for the current crop of GOPer candidates is their sexual hypocrisy and deviancy; from Foley (and party leadership's blind eye to it), to the candidate who claimed that he didn't choke his mistress, to the candidate who threatened and pushed a cocktail waitress up against a garage wall....the list goes on and on.
so, whaddaya do? Why you portray the other party as deviant! Check out the RNC's campaign commercials against Harold Ford (featuring a "bimbo" who claims to have met him at the "Playboy Mansion") and commercial of the midwest candidate who inadvertently dialed of a phone sex line.
Will it work?
October 22, 2006 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't be naive into thinking that the Republicans have seen the handwriting on the wall and are packing it in. The Republicans have enjoyed almost totally unchecked power since 2000 and they will not surrender it easily. They will play every dirty trick they know. Remember Rove trained under Lee Atwater - do some reading up on Lee Atwater.
Yes Rove has laid some big ones probably why he's been dubbed "turd blossom", but his full time job is working to maintain Republican control and he knows how to win. The Republicans will spend a lot of money on negative advertising over the next two weeks and they will target their money to win. And when the election is over, they will have their lawyers fighting over disputed ballots in close elections. November 8th is not the end of this fight.
Too many races are still tossups and Republicans still have a chance to turn many of them in their favor. Unless the Democratic candidate is holding steady and consistently over 50% in the polls, the race is still in play. Negative ads work, that is why both parties use them and candidates who hold comfortable leads can see those numbers reversed within a few days. The pundits are making predictions, but we haven't won anything yet.
The Republicans haven't been defeated and the word "annihilation" doesn't even belong in this discussion. It smacks of more overconfidence and plays into the Republican disinformation campaign. Political pundits with their predictions are a dime a dozen, we need to keep our focus on the basics.
"Never underestimate our ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory." - comment about Democrats made by a former Clinton staffer
October 22, 2006 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd say big Dem wins in November will pretty severely weaken, if not completely dismantle, the current GOP coalition. Independents are aligning more and more with Democrats. As we have witnessed, the GOP is beginning to lose some of their credibility with evangelicals. Midterm losses will cause the GOP elite to debate the efficacy of pushing the evangelical card and either isolate that faction or risk the permanent alignment of independents with the Dems. Either way its a lose-lose situtation for the current GOP. There long term prospects are slim at best.
Dems need not talk like Republicans. The Republicans are in trouble because they are Republicans and have governed with a Republican philosophy. The country has rejected that philosophy and is rejecting it more and more. Congress is in the low 20s at best and the current Congress has not allowed Democrats any input on governance in the last several years.
October 22, 2006 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, the Republican machine is still dangerous, and complacency is never appropriate when your opponent still possesses formidable resources. But the time to pull an October surprise is the first week of October, not in the last two weeks of the campaign. The closer you get get to election day, the more people have made up their minds. In other words, it gets progressively more expensive to change votes.
As extraordinary as it may seem, we may have seen the best that they have got. If they actually had a 'killer' tactic, they would have prepped for it this summer and started delivering it after Labor Day. I think that this is what Rove did. He decided to focus on 9/11 and 'stay the course'. But then it blew up in his face.
This is not to say that they can't win with what they have got. But now it probably too late to change the plan. So the only option they have left to is to what they have been doing, and to do it louder and nastier.
October 22, 2006 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem for Rove and his 'bag of dirty tricks' is that they are now enveloped in clear plastic for all to see. You can far more easily prepare for an attack if you know what to anticipate; it seems the stench from his trash bag is blowing decidedly upwind.
When I watched Wolf Blitzer (don't challenge it if it's contorversial, cause we don't want to upset the 'Larry King' viewer base) Blitzer forcefully challenge Patrick McHenry's NC 10 (R) claims that Democrats were responsible for covering up evidence in the Mark Foley scandal, the winds of change were starting to smell pretty sweet.
Also, when reliable GOP mouthpieces like Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan smilingly predict and encourage the idea that the GOP will lose congress this election cycle, you know that sunlight is finally disinfecting the fetid halls of Congress.
October 22, 2006 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that we may see a lot of money at work, but any ideas to be used in elections had to be introduced already.
GOP is nothing if not astute in using marketing techniques. As you do not introduce new products in August, you need more that 3 weeks to promote something new, even if this is a putative Hollywood blockbuster.
The ace card of Busheviks was fear. But people got used to it. Then there were "hot button social issues". How many times one can prohibit gay marriage in a state Constitution? Then there are taxes, friendliness to bussiness etc.
What truly doomed GOP, in my opinion, is their penchant for living dangerously. It goes like that: they have their lists of pet issues, or pet promises for special interest groups and they govern to deliver on these issues. If you win nationally with a lopsided majority, something went wrong -- you could press for more from your list. Or you could find sinecures for more cronies. This is the chief reason why they managed to amass amazing effective hot button issue and create a veritable gold mine of political donations and yet won 3 times with the narrowest of margins.
I think that they will loose narrowly one of the houses, but that will not interrupt the current round of internal squabbles, and it will seriously damage their money machine: K Street will start hedging as it used to in the old times.
October 22, 2006 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do we need all these paranoid conspiracy theories about Diebold and Rove? We know exactly what Rove's "October surprise" is. As Greg writes, we've already been seeing it for weeks now. As for Diebold, if the elections suddenly turn out to be a narrow victory for the Republicans we'll know where to look.
What people never stop to consider is: what is the point of an October surprise? To change the minds of the voters. But by election's eve most people have already made up their minds and won't change them no matter what happens in the news. The number of really uncommitted voters and the truly wishy-washy shrinks with every day.
If you have an October surprise it would be better to play it in September. Have a bit longer so that you can go onto the offensive around some news event. Why wait until the last minute when many people have already made up their minds and won't change their vote no matter what the news?
The only exception to this rule would be if it's some blip that will give a very temporary lift to Bush's approval ratings before disillusionment sets in again, so you need to plan it as close to the election as possible.
But, we already have such an event scheduled, Saddam is due to be sentenced the day before the election by a Kangaroo court hand selected by us. Coincidence? Hardly.
They've scheduled this for months now but it's not going to work. Try to even imagine an event that would dramatically change the election the day before! Maybe killing Bin Laden, but they don't have a clue where he is. That's about the only thing that might help Bush at this point.
We had 9-11 and it did nothing for the Republicans and Saddam being sentenced to death only reminds people that Saddam has been gone for a long time, yet the war continues. It's not exactly an unalloyed triumph for the Republicans at this point to mention to Iraq at all.
As Fawlty Towers' Basil famously said: "Try not to mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it."
October 22, 2006 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Democrats, who have been acting like victims, might consider inmcluding Rove in this type of approach:
I'm ashamed but we have to call Rumsfeld a "traitor" along with Murtha and the Generals who advocate getting us out of Iraq, Never thought he'd say we have to turn it all over to the Iraqis themselves before they were ready. I guess he finally threw in the towel. Old "cut and run" Rumsfeld. What a pity!
If only Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld would "stay the course" and let our troops "stand down as the Iraquis stand up", everything would be OK. But, no, they've turned into the kind of "traitors" the dissenting generals were, and Murtha, and even Jim Baker and Kerry and Hillary seem to be. Our government is now being run by "traitors" who want to change what we're doing and cave into the defeat of our troops. Of course, to keep doing what we've been doing requires even more troops, and that requires a ... dare I say it? ... "draft"; but anything to defeat these Iraqui terrorists in this "war on terror," right?
First James Baker, then a couple of Senators like Warner and Hagel, then the leak that old Father Bush hands are in dismay over the direction of the war in Iraq. Theyre pumping up a campaign to change course and do exactly what Murtha has been calling for, only none of them is being called a traitor or a member of the cut and run group, as Murtha and others were. But thats exactly what theyre proposing. Now, in effect, Will joins them.
Just watch as Bush himself starts to back-pedal, saying maybe if something isn't working, we ought to change it. He says, "We'll change tactics not strategy." A play on a words is what that is. With that, "cut and run" suddenly goes down the drain. No "traitors" here anymore, even Bush when he says he'll consider what Baker and his committee want to propose. I call them all "traitors" because I grieve for the good men and women already killed, and the others who still will be killed, while this timetable and withdrawal change occurs.
October 22, 2006 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, if Rove believes victory can be won if we're really winning to "fight" this war, we need to send Karl Rove, President Bush, Laura Bush, the two Bush girls, Mr. Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove, maybe Denny Hastert and Joe Lieberman to the front lines, in appropriate early design bullet proof vests and ill-equipped Hummers, all to do what they’re suggesting. I love the columnists who suggest we can't "cut and run" and suggest instead that we keep our young people in the military in harms way so they can be killed to correct those clowns’ mistakes. Maybe some of the other liars, too, could join the crew I have named above of first rate idiots who, along with the neocons we could add like Wolfowitz & Co. to the newly created battalion, to rectify the situation. Remember, needlessly killing our young people isn't something we like to mention when proposing solutions about messes created by Bush & Co. like Iraq or Afghanistan; it's all lofty ideas and solutions. The alternative is to let the locals solve their own problems and for our government to work on real strategic solutions to existing problems, like learning how to act like diplomats and working out real strategic solutions that don't involve stupid loss of life. What's really behind all this, if you really think about it, is oil and nothing more; no one would care a fig for any of this if it weren't for the oil. Once we figure out how to divorce ourselves from using oil, these places will become minor players in world affairs.
October 22, 2006 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
An October Surprise doesn't have to be any big message shift. Don't think some grand attack strategy think small strategic attacks. It could be a few dozen little stories like Foleygate, based on dirt they've probably dug up on local candidates and they'll use in negative ads.
Stories like Foleygate don't have long legs, they don't last long in the media and rarely ever last a month. But 24 hour news machines always need to be fed and those type of little stories along with negative ads help plant seeds of doubt in voters minds. What are voters going to remember about a candidate, the first thing they heard or the last thing they heard?
It may never happen, but you have to think ahead and be cautious.
October 22, 2006 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of the GOP, in a non Federal, state level race, the campaign of Kerry Healy, current Lt Gov to presidential wannabe, Mitt Romney (R-MA), for Governor is far and away, the vilest and nastiest I have ever seen in my lifetime. She has used every national Republican tactic and expression from their playbook to dry an demonize and tear down Democratic nominee and former Clinton Justice Department operative, Deval Patrick. I'm guessing that races around the country are seeing this same phenomenon in theoir states, too.
October 22, 2006 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
We're probably going to get another videotape from Osama bin Laden in the next two weeks. He has delivered for his favorite candidate, Bush, in both 2002 and 2004.
I think I'd expect it right before the Death verdict on Saddam. Osama to raise the fear level, and the Saddam verdict to show "Here's what the Republicans are doning to protect you, so vote Republican."
Of course, if the Iraqis found Saddam "Not Guilty" it sure would mess with the Republican side of the election. Anyone think that the government Iraqis are that t'eed off at Bush?
Since Saddam is undergoing two trials right now and more to come, they could do that with no real danger of letting Saddam really get off. Sure would hurt the Republicans if done right before the election, though.
Still, I am curious to see the Osama videotape. It is due soon.
October 22, 2006 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only will they play every dirty trick they can before the election, if they lose the Congress they are going to start acting like the anti-Clintonistas from 97 to 2000. But on steriods with Meth kickers.
October 22, 2006 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Similar crap is going on in Ohio. Ken Blackwell, our current Secretary of State and the Republican gubernatorial candidate, has been trying to paint his opponent, Ted Strickland, as a closet gay who's soft on pedophiles. The state AG's race has similar crap going on -- Betty Montgomery has been running TV ads that use court filings that her opponent made when he was doing criminal defense work to make him look like a Friend of Pedophiles. It's pretty vile stuff.
October 22, 2006 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The heck with the vests and the Hummers. Airdrop into Anbar province, equipment:
(1) Trenching tool
(2) Infantry carbine
(3) 20 rounds ammo
(4) 14 days MRE and 2 gallons Euphrates water, collected downstream from Baghdad
(5) One radio in need of re-conditioning
(6) One copy of the American Enterprise Institutes "Plan for the New American Century" for light reading
(7) one year's non-refundable subscription to RUSH 24/7
October 22, 2006 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Translate Rush into Arabic and blast him, via giant loudspeakers, at insurgent strongholds. They will either die laughing, or charge the loudspeakers, in front of which are M18A1 Claymore command controlled (and thus legal under the land mine treaty) mines. Repeat as necessary.
It would be amusing if someone would come up with the recently disclosed refinements of the psychological operations against Noriega while he was in the Papal Nunciate. It wasn't the pounding music as much as the creation of the Evil Goat.
As an example of the use of intelligence, it was found that one of Noriega's spiritual advisors had advised him that wearing red bikini undershorts would give him power. In the same rite, goats were considered very unlucky.
So, the US Army psychological warriors found the nastiest, smelliest goat possible, and clad him in the equivalent of red bikinis. They then rigged some special-effects smoke such that the goat appeared to be spurting smoke from nose and ears, then spotlighted him to be visible from Noriega's window.
I wonder what GWB's choices are in lucky underwear, and how he feels about goats? donkeys? elephants?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
October 22, 2006 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
this is a two-fold strategy. It's meant first to feed the "everybody does it" meme. You can't vote based on sex scandals because everybody does it. The trouble is they don't have any real sex scandals they can point to.
The second is to drive down turnout. Back in the day that was the primary reason the Republicans went negative--to fill marginal voters with disgust and disdain so that they would stay home. Nowadays, dovetailed with their finely tuned GOTV machine, a tactic that shifts people from "throw the bums out" to "they're all crooks and liars" is more effective than ever.
However, from what I've seen of the ads, they look more desperate than effective. The blogosphere may only be showing the especially bad ones,.
October 22, 2006 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
"US Army psychological warriors..."
I think that what those warriors do best is to make our high command feel inventive and brilliant. Smearing "blood-looking liquid" by female soldiers on Guantanamo inmates seemed to be calculated to achieve the same effect.
Noriega was definitely not stupid and he would tell a real santeria rite from a mockery.
October 22, 2006 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't be silly! The court and jury were hand-picked by the American occupation forces, and the presiding judge was dismissed in the middle of the trial because the prosecutor complained that his rulings from the bench were too favorable to the defendant.
This farce of a trial makes Stalin's show trials look totally impartial by comparison!
It's a totally rigged show-trial made to order for Bush with the verdict set to come out 2 days prior to the election. (or is it the DAY before the election)?
I wonder what would happen to the court officers and their families if the whole thing didn't happen on time, thus preventing the verdict from being announced before the election?
They'd probably withdraw all security from the judge and let the Saddam loyalists have a go at him.
October 22, 2006 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is exactly right, just as I've already posted, although I missed the product marketing angle.
If there was any profitable line of attack the Republicans had they wouldn't wait until now, they'd have been using it all along.
We saw Karl Rove's real strategy back in Sept.
1. Get all the talk radio and Fox News sock-puppets on message talking about a "Bush rebound" due to the impending 65th anniversary of 9-11.
2. Put out the lying "Road to 9-11" blaming everything on Clinton and totally covering up what all the experts and principals have already said about the warnings the BUSH Admin. totally ignored.
3. Stage an endless sea of news-conferences and photo-ops promoting the idea that "Bush has kept us safe from terrorist attack since 9-11" and attacking the Democrats for wanting to "cut and run" in Iraq.
4. Ride to victory on a storm of fawning media adulation.
Only it all blew up in their faces! First, the reports that Iraq is making terrorism worse, then then dramatic increase in attacks against Americans, then their Foleygate cover-up was the cherry on top.
I don't even think the Republicans are spending money now to convince anyone. It's all just being done to rally the base and fire them up so they won't stay home on election day.
But independents aren't going to be convinced by this swill, so the Rethugs will lose this time.
October 22, 2006 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is that between early poll voting and absentee ballots, the time to pull out an October surprise was about a week ago.
October 22, 2006 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats should be saying, "Bring it on, bee-yatch. Bring. It. On."
Dissent Protects Democracy.
October 22, 2006 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rove should be given some credit for being the first campaign manager in the age of polling to win reelection for a president with a sub-50 approval rating in the Gallup Poll. Still, that's like giving John L. Smith credit for bringing Michgan State back in the biggest comeback of all time on Saturday--against an inferior opponent who MSU had no business being 5 TDs down to in the first place.
Moreover, he has presided over an administration which has steadily gone down in approval since the very beginning--with the exception of 9/11. He largely lucked into that, just like he lucked into the fact that Massachusetts legalized gay marriage and a backlash swept swing states in 2004. They guy has tricks up his sleeve, but his supply is not endless, nor are his tricks exceptionally good. The Swift Boat stuff is today called "brilliant", but it could have backfired with a different opponent, and didn't take that much imagination to dream up. It's a pretty standard (though extremely vile) example of negative campaigning.
The media treats you like a genius until you lose, just like it does for football coaches.
October 22, 2006 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
About 20-25% of the Midterm votes are projected to be by absentee or early voting. Most of the ballots will still be cast on November 7th.
People have reported on this site that they have been push-polled and the whisper campaigns have already started.
October 23, 2006 12:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm pretty familiar with what psyops have accomplished, and it has saved quite a few lives on both sides.
You misunderstand completely the point of the goat. The purpose of the exercise was to pressure him until he came out on his own, which he did. The goat was a parody of a Santeria ritual, and attacked him right in the machismo, by ridiculing him and telling him that we knew things about him?
You are harping on a trivial incident, which probably didn't involve psychological warfare specialists -- the people at Guantanamo would have been military intelligence interrogators.
It might be informative to see how the PSYOPs people convinced Japanese, on Okinawa, to surrender rather than die -- or the extent to which they did the same to Iraqi troops in 1991.
Tell me, do you actually have any military knowledge, or is your response to any military proposition or capability to ridicule it? Do you, for example, know the command or organization of Army psyops personnel, or anything about doctrine? Without looking ut up, the role of the COMMANDO SOLO program?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
October 23, 2006 12:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, there's one October surprise that could drive the Independents over the edge towards the Democrats.
It would be some kind of proof that the White House has been using its domestic spying capabilities for purely domestic political purposes.
Just as Bush has put his own definition on "torture", he has probably defined "terrorists" as Democrats. Some true indication of the vast of federal spying on political opponents - especially everyday voters - would no doubt shock the ideological mugwumps into action at the ballot box. Furthermore, when the domestic wiretaps are shown to be matched to Democratss' IRS and credit reports in order to harm regular citizens, the Rove team will end up in jail, if only for its own safety.
October 23, 2006 8:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
That seems to be a national Republican tactic that's being used by Republican candidates in state races around the country. In MA, while Lt Gov, Kerry Healy hasn't used the gay threat, she has saturated the market with dark, somber ads accusing her opponent, Deval Patrick of defending rapists and murderers. 'He should be ashamed, not governor' she says. Vile, vile, vile. Anyone who would condone advertising like this will not be my governor.
October 23, 2006 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the MSM plays into the hands of election manipulation by reporting on elections as sport. Predictions of final scores in ESPN are predicated on opinion and supposition, not statistical certainties of polling.
When the results don't match predictions, like sports reporters, they look for predictions that match the outcome. Predictions that are nothing more than a smokescreen for malfeasance.
I'm pretty sure this election will go as the last 2, a narrow "victory" by the GOP. The only question for me is how many elections will have to be stolen before Democrats decide that the process is broken and a national strike or mass Democratic walkout of congress as the Texas Eleven did in 2003 is the only solution?
October 23, 2006 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The following quote misses the real point and "surprise"
"The guy has tricks up his sleeve, but his supply is not endless, nor are his tricks exceptionally good."
I truly do not understand why we don't know what Rove's tricks are going to be. They will be what we witnessed in Ohio (and Florida) and investigated and published by Rep Conyers. They are going to spend even more money keeping people from voting, and hiring more hackers to change the results of the machine voting.
I predict that Rove will retain the Congress by identifying the close races and then carry out his dirty tricks that the media never covered appropriately.
The tricks may not be endless, but the number of votes that can be switched by hackers IS endless, therefore they are very effective.
October 23, 2006 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The low-road accusations of Democrats being "pedophilia friendly" are very clearly a last-ditch attempt to cover for the Foley (and other) scandal(s). The Republicans have lied worse, but it has come across better when they've had more time to coordinate and to gradually introduct the message via talking puppets before the candidates latch on to the established "controversy." The fact is, they've completely missed the "sweet spot" in pre-election timing to change the most minds - that was taken up with the scandals themselves.
But it's not who the "undecideds" vote for that is going to be the most critical factor, it's to what degree the evangelical Christian base decides to skip the election.
Rove and Bush's strident insistence that the Republicans are going to win both houses of Congress anyways no matter what are eerily similar to the insistence of Saddam's propogandists that they were winning the war in Iraq even as they were being dismantled. Up until the very end they continued to insist that they had some secret suprise up their sleeves that they were going to unveil "any moment now." For those whose empires are built on the appearance of omnipotence (like Saddam and Rove) saying you're going to win can be more important than winning. The fallacy here is to assume that Rove is some sort of a brilliant genius simply because he has never lost. This only holds true up until the moment that he does.
October 23, 2006 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Why do we need all these paranoid conspiracy theories about Diebold...
Paranoid? You're kidding, right? Have you read Robert Kennedy Jr's article in Rolling Stone, or the Princeton study about hacking voting machines?
Conspiracies are not always just theories, but calling them that does alot to keep people from acknowledging what is right in front of their eyes.
No one wants to be labelled a nut-case -- Rove et al count on that. I think the reason they have gotten away with it is precisely because people don't want to say the truth, because they
a) don't want to believe it themselves, and b) don't want to be called a "conspiracy theorist."
----Thus-----the perfect crime. By the "perfect" criminals.
Jan Knaus
October 23, 2006 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thing is sure. All Democratic candidates who have any evidence for voter fraud should DEMAND A RECOUNT! Absolutely NO concession speeches if they believe the votes were stolen.
We should have learned from Gore. We should have learned from Kerry. Let's see, we got fooled twice! Third time's a charm!
No precincts that report the opposite of exit polls should be conceded!
BTW -- someone said that exit polls were not going to be permitted in this election. Is that a nasty rumor? It must be. How could the Bushits prevent that?
Of course, you wouldn't think they could prevent photographers from taking pictures of coffins either, or that they could prevent people from wearing anti-Bush t-shirts from going near our fearful leader, but hey, this is amerika!
Let's take it back!
Jan Knaus
October 23, 2006 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm convinced this has happened.
With the power to surveil in their hands, I doubt that this group will have any more scuples about using that power for partisan political purposes than Nixon's crew.
Before the 2004 election, someone revealed that journalists reporting the war were being wiretapped, including C. Amanpour, which would have also captured the conversations of her husband, who worked for the Kerry campaign at the time. CNN said they would release the results of their own investigation of the matter, then the story disappeared completely from the radar, never mentioned again.
NPR had a piece (oct 11) about the RNC using homeland security data mining techniques to identify potential voters and target them with personal political recruitment and fundraising contacts.
Republican strategists had determined that this was far more effective than targeting voting blocks. Have they applied illegal techniques to illegally obtained data bases? I don't know, but I suspect that they have. I certainly doubt that Democrats are being given equal access to information and techniques developed with public funding.
I know of 2 individuals who received personalized contacts from the RNC, one after contacting his Congressional Rep, the other after opening a small business. Both contacts indicated that information from one data base had been cross-referenced with information from other data bases, a fairly sophisticated effort.
A friend who wrote his Congressmen about net neutrality soon afterward got a recruitment message from the RNC saying they had noticed that no one in his household was registered to vote.
These tactics may collectively be the "october surprise." Individual campaign targeting could give Rove/Bush confidence that actual voter turnout may be more heavily Republican than polling results project. If machines are fixed, this may at least be offered as a rationale to explain why the actual voted differed from the projected vote.
October 23, 2006 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jury? Have you seen a jury in any of the videos of Saddam's trial? This is a Napoleonic Law type court where the Judge not only supervises the trial but also determines guilt or innocence.
Of Course it's a show trial. The question is who it belongs to. The U.S. or to the Iraqi "government."
Is there any real question whether the U.S. Army will be there in three to four years? (Or less?) If so, forget it. We are gone. The only issues remaining are the terms of our retreat.
We have power there today, but where does the Judge expect to be living when we leave? He belongs to the Iraqi "government" (of the green Zone) first. If he contributes to their power, and they survive as a government after we leave, he may still be living in Iraq after we leave. Otherwise he will be another refugee in Jordan or Lebanon then. And whoever the future government of Iraq is, they will not be known as supporters of Bush. Far from it. They will have opposed most of what he wanted.
Members of the current Iraqi government, if they hang together, will be in a relatively good position to survive the American retreat. But they need to start opposing Bush NOW to do it.
October 23, 2006 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the number to remember here is 5, that's how many votes they need to overturn Roe-v-Wade, and that's what will bring out the Evangelicals Nov. 7th even though they may be holding their noses while pulling that lever. They are way too close to give up that fight now. There are a few things working against them such as: a)they already have the 5 votes, b) Justice Stevens won't retire/die, and c) that they've waited too long to overtly play this card. I don't however see any hubris on their part over a Justice Kennedy vote and they've never wanted to overtly make this an issue that would arouse the pro-choice block. So the questions then are can they continue couching this issue in code words via surregates on the pulpit and on the fringe(such as Bill Bennett), or must the Evangelicals hear it from Bush's mouth directly. Are either of these two enough? Either of these have the possibilty of being too little or too much. What I do expect, and what may really be the "October surprise" is some leak as to Justice Steven's health and/or fitness to continue on the bench. The question then is do they spring it on Friday and get the benefit of the Sunday news cycle and time enough to rally the troups but maybe also give time to the opposition to rally thier troups or do they wait til Monday/Tuesday when they only have the final Sunday news cycle before the election which gives them a better chance of catching the opposition flat footed but maybe not enough time to get the message out/let it sink in to their troups? Here may be where Rove's legacy is cemented or crushed.
Btw, it may already be decided that the house is lost and its loss at least for a SCOTUS nomination is insignificant anyhow. Look to the senate battle states of Missouri, Tennesse, Virginia, and possibly New Jersey(which is a twofer for them) where such a rumor will emenate.
October 24, 2006 7:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: the following passage from the original post...
$40 mill over 3 weeks is more than double the previous $40 mill over 7 weeks, so, yes, it would appear that the Republicans can more than double their spending -- and even moreso since the spending down-the-stretch will be directed at a more focused set of races.October 24, 2006 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink